Gov. Mark Dayton signs $9.50 minimum wage hike into law

By
KBJR News 1

Credit: State of Minnesota

Governor Mark Dayton signs into law the first increase in Minnesota’s minimum wage in a decade. The state’s minimum wage will rise to $9.50 per hour by 2016, and be indexed to inflation to keep up with the cost of living

April 14, 2014Updated Apr 15, 2014 at 10:21 AM CDT

St. Paul, MN (NNCNOW.com) - Minnesota's low wage workers will see a pay bump as soon as this August after the Governor signed a minimum wage increase into law Monday.

The Governor signed the bill in the Capitol rotunda giving 357,000 people a wage hike for the first time since 2005.

This August low wage workers will see a bump from $6.15 an hour to$ 8 dollars an hour.

Next year it will go to $9.00 an hour, then $9.50 an hour in August 2016.

The deal also includes a smaller bump for small businesses, up to $7.75 an hour in 2016.

Beginning in 2018, all wages would increase each year on January 1st by inflation measured by the implicit price deflator capped at 2.5%.

“Minnesotans who work full-time should be able to earn enough money to lift their families out of poverty, and through hard work and additional training, achieve the middle-class American Dream,” said Governor Dayton. “Raising the minimum wage to $9.50, and indexing it to inflation, will improve the lives of over 325,000 hard-working Minnesotans. I thank the Legislature for recognizing the need to make work pay in Minnesota.”

Critics of the minimum wage hike say it isn't thoughtful, and say they would have voted on a measure to conform to the federal wage.

The Minnesota Restaurant Association's proposal called for tipped employees who earn at least $12 an hour with their claimed tips, to get the current $7.25 minimum wage.

If they didn't earn that much an hour, they would have been guaranteed the new higher minimum wage.That proposal wasn't a consideration.